I know I promised to shut up about it, but that is because I lied to you. I lied to you so hard.

When I wrote this about Grand Theft Auto, it was more of an impression than a review; the game had only been out for a few days at that point. I’ve had much, much more time put in on it. I’ve finally gotten beyond the novelty factor enough to honestly consider the game itself, and I have come to this conclusion:

It is shit.

It’s repetitive, poorly implemented, riddled with design flaws, awkward, and above all glitchy. I’ll stop now and give you all a moment to type the word ‘motherfucker’ a few dozen times in the comments section below, and then we’ll continue.

Grand Theft Auto IV is a horrible game, and yet I stand by every word of my previous gushing impressions. It is perhaps the single most impressive achievement in gaming, and one of the shoddiest mass-market releases I have ever seen. And at the risk of seeming like an even more monumental asshole, I think it’s the very aspects that make GTA IV so impressive that also completely ruin it.

That leaves a hell of a lot of explaining for me to do. First, everything I said about the city and it’s immersiveness is absolutely true. If anything, I have come to appreciate what Rockstar has accomplished here even more the longer I play. I notice even more of the little things, like how the fast food workers at the various restaurants actually have different duties. They don’t merely stand there, inanimate, existing only to serve the one function you require – food. They come out from behind the counter and clean the tables. They sweep the sidewalks out front and wash the windows. Or that the cars actually break down – even when they’re not yours. I’ve driven by several times now and seen random civilians causing massive traffic jams, standing in front of their overheated vehicles completely befuddled. Drivers caught behind them get angry, they honk and yell and swerve around the other drivers furiously. Or how about the cable car connecting two of the islands? Did you even know it was there? There’s no reason for it to exist. It doesn’t appear in the single player campaign, it serves no utilitarian purpose, but Rockstar has populated their town with details like this specifically to increase the immersion of the player. This city is the closest gaming has ever come to a real place, a real New York. The flyers, the newspaper stands, the grime – it’s the little things that make this truly a living, breathing environment.

So it’s just too bad that Rockstar layered an irreperably flawed game on top of it. The actual gameplay in Grand Theft Auto IV is nearly identical to every GTA before it, and gameplay has never been their strong suit. They’ve added and tweaked, to be sure, but it’s almost universally for the worse. There is an implemented cover mechanic, for example, that is nothing short of ridiculous. It’s incredibly clumsy; you hit the button once to cover, and then as you try to move along the cover you’ve taken, the system often randomly interprets your movement to mean you want to switch cover entirely. So rather than sneaking along a wall to ambush an unsuspecting enemy, it’s equally likely that you’ll break cover, run two feet to a fire hydrant and crouch behind it while bullets rain into you – leaving you to die squatting in the middle of the road like a diarrhetic hobo.

They’ve also added a great deal of versatility to the jumping system. Hitting the jump button will now execute a number of actions such as climbing, mounting, or just hopping over obstacles. This new system allows you to seamlessly hurdle through the new, vastly detailed terrain without breaking stride…in theory. In practice, however, assigning all environmental interaction to one button – a button that already has a vital function; jumping – is an exercise in stupidity. No, it’s more than an exercise, it’s a grand athletic competition in stupidity. It’s the motherfucking Olympics of stupidity. Maneuvering through this city is complicated by the very details that make it great; the path is no longer flat, the terrain is varied, and some sense of agility on the part of your character is absolutely, fundamentally necessary now. Ideally, small obstacles would be handled automatically – your character should step up foot-high ledges, hop over fire hydrants and make tiny distance jumps on his own. But he typically doesn’t, and you find yourself having to force him to do these things quite often, but not always. Leaving you to continuously wonder: Is he going to just step over this curb, or am I going to get caught jogging in place alongside it? If I hit the button now, does that mean hop over that thing, or leap in front of that speeding bus? Does pressing jump actually mean jump, or does it mean vault over the safety railing and fall to certain death?

This is a hell of a snap decision to make at a tense point in the game. At no point should pressing one button mean either:

A.) Use the sidewalk

OR

B.) Kill yourself.

Maybe Nico is supposed to be dangerously bi-polar, and this is just Rockstar’s way of simulating his mental instability, but either way it doesn’t help the gameplay.

It is beautiful to behold how active and full Liberty City is, and everything that doesn’t expressly involve your character interweaves together seamlessly. As soon as your input becomes a part of it, however, that’s when things start to fall apart. The collision detection is sketchy at best. A poorly aligned car too close to your leg could just knock you down…or it could send you into an awkward, flailing convulsion that effectively incapacitates you until the driver decides that you’ve had enough of doing the Batoosie and mercifully moves on. The missions and goals are little more than ultra-gritty deliveries – sometimes it’s coke, sometimes it’s a car, sometimes it’s death – but it’s always drive from point A to point B, kill or drop off something, escape cops. I know this is the premise of GTA, that you’re a mercenary driver, but if you can’t think of any variety to add to these missions outside of “use a different car this time,” then you probably don’t need thirty hours of them. Also, why for the love of an all-knowing God are there no checkpoints in the longer, multi-stage missions? If a mission requires me to drive across town to steal a Ferrari, kill forty-five cops in a parking garage, blow up a helicopter with a hand-grenade, deliver a boat full of heroin, and then dress up like a clown to perform at a children’s birthday party, I shouldn’t have to do every step of that again if my fucking seltzer bottle clogs up and the kids get bored. That’s just shoddy design, and there’s no justifying that.

These things may not be completely ruinous in the single-player campaign, but they’re particularly noticeable in the multi-player. Easily half of all the multi-player games I’ve been in have been won or lost on a glitch. I’ve been gunned down in Deathmatch because my foot was too close to a moped, which causes me to inexplicably levitate in the air while the other players take potshots at me like I’m a blood Pinata. I’ve lost games of Cops ‘N Crooks when – after a flurry of amazing stunt jumps, eerily accurate sniper-fire and well-placed rockets, I hit the enter vehicle button at the getaway boat and my guy can’t figure out how to walk around the seat. I stand there twitching in place, unable to move, while cops stroll casually up and slap me to death. To be fair, you could assume I suck at this game, but amazingly that’s not true. I win far more often than I lose, and I’m typically one of the better players in any given game. I’ve even managed to kill a Rockstar developer, and so now my online avatar has been transformed into a naked zombie (which is an awesome bonus, by the way.) I think I’m pretty okay at this game, it’s just that even half of the matches that I win, I win by glitch. After a long chase, I’ll frequently see my enemies hitting the jump button to step up a curb, and instead go flailing off of a bridge. They’ll get stuck in buildings, have cars materialize into existence directly in front of them, or most perplexingly, they’ll suddenly lay down and zip around the street; their bodies rigid and motionless as they luge about the intersection while I fire rockets at their ricocheting, paralytic corpses like a twisted, hellish game of Air-hockey. It’s frustrating to lose to these things, sure, but even the victories are hollow when you know the only reason you’ve won is because your arch-nemesis’ knee accidentally touched somebody’s fender and he couldn’t stop disco-dancing.

I don’t mean to imply that the flaws outweigh the perks; they don’t, but just barely. I won’t stop playing it over these issues, both because the city and what it could have been are too tempting, and because the few times where everything does go right, it is nothing short of amazing. But Grand Theft Auto IV exemplifies why the scoring system of game reviews is so fucked at its very core. If I had to score it, I would’ve said that GTA IV gets a 10, because this game makes you remember everything you dreamed video games could be as a kid. But does a perfect score mean a perfect game? How can you give Liberty City a 10, but Grand Theft Auto IV a 5? Reducing everything to a number is such a black and white summation that there’s simply no way to accurately tell everybody that this may be the best game ever made, and you fucking hate it so much it’s like a knife in your eye. I guess that’s what I really wanted to get across.

It’s times like this when I really wish that media ownership wasn’t quite so proprietary. Rockstar did an amazing thing here, and made a city worthy of a great game. They just forgot to do the great game part. If they could lease out their digital environments like other companies lease out their gaming engines, amazing things could be done with it. A million different games could be set within the borders of this city – stealth games, racing games, fighting games or hell, even sim games. I assume the bulk of the hundred million dollars Rockstar spent developing GTA went to the insane detail in this environment. Why not let another company buy some rights to it, and spend substantially less to develop working game mechanics? Let somebody else put a bit of work into it, and develop even more interactivity. A lesser company could come along and just detail the insides of the buildings a little more, for example, and that would do wonders in effectively expanding your environment. They could spend a tenth of your costs and add a little something more to your city. With a little cooperation they could build modest profits, and your wonderful game environment could truly thrive. Why not?

I agree with you 100% on this. I reached the 40% mark in the single player campaign, then went through a few ridiculous glitches and haven’t touched it since. Multiplayer didn’t even work for me. Couldn’t get a game going. Yes, the world is amazing, delightful even, but I can’t play the game. I’ll go nuts.

You make some serious points here, man. I tend to feel the same way whenever I run across a brilliant concept that is poorly executed in some way, and I know that just a little time and a couple of talented designers could have made it something wonderful.

I’m still a fan, too! The environment and atmosphere make it the best game I’ve ever played, but the gameplay mechanics and glitches make it one of the worst. The best game wins out, of course, but I can’t just pretend the other stuff isn’t there. I just hate seeing something so great marred by these many flaws.

I’m with you completely on this. Combat is really a mixed bag. When attacking people from far away, your aim is phenomenal. When close up, everything goes to shit. Hand-to-hand combat is sluggish no matter the occasion, and free roam movement when you’re not aiming at something isn’t as responsive as you’d like it to be. And we can’t forget ladders, which take forever to grab a hold of in order to ascend, and will most likely result in you falling to your death if you ever try to get down them.

Plus, weapons are seriously lacking. Whatever happened to the minigun? Remember Vice City? That game was loaded with an enormous array of weapons. Granted, some seemed redundant and did basically the same thing, but there was still a lot to choose from. In this game it’s just two of each type of weapon, and a rocket launcher. Plus, when you get enough money to afford the better weapons, you never need to go back to the worse ones. So after a certain point, there’s really only one type of each weapon. A variety of guns, each with benefits and shortcomings, would have really added complexity to the missions. Missions shouldn’t just require a player to stock up on as much ammunition as possible. Rather, they should have forced you to choose weapons wisely.

Also, I realized recently that many games’ difficulty is a combination of the quality of the games’ controls and the enemies’ hardiness. I recently rented two games that showcase this point: Devil May Cry 4 and Ninja Gaiden II. They’re both OK games (Ninja Gaiden II’s graphics are a bit lacking for a game whose predecessor seemed so polished on the original XBOX, and the camera has actually gotten worse since the last game) and they’re both sort of in the same genre (hack n’ slash your way through various environments using a variety of weapons). However Devil May Cry 4 has controls that seem a bit basic–if you hit the enemies enough, they will die. In comparison, Ninja Gaiden II’s controls are so swift and responsive that there must be enemies who are up to the challenge of fighting you. And there are. If you’re not quick to respond, your enemies will pound you into oblivion. The threat of death is palpable in Ninja Gaiden II, whereas it’s lacking in Devil May Cry 4 because your controls aren’t as responsive as you’d like them to be, the enemies aren’t as threatening (they merely require a persistent pounding), and the pace of the game overall is slower. Ninja Gaiden II has enemies fast enough, strong enough, and smart enough to match its protagonist, and a protagonist whose skills match his enemies’. I like to think that the controls in GTA IV are a bit like those in Devil May Cry 4. Their sluggishness lends to the game’s difficulty. If Nico Bellic was as fast and responsive in GTA IV as Ryu Hayabusa is in Ninja Gaiden II, then he would make short work of his enemies. Thus, to meet Nico’s (your) abilities, more intelligent, stronger, and faster enemies would be needed. I guess what I’m trying to say is a bit obvious and simple: GTA IV needs more responsive controls, and more difficult baddies to meet the challenge of your excellent aim (at least, from afar). Imagine what a great game GTA IV would be if Nico reacted to controller input like Ryu does. Tougher enemies would be needed, but so be it. I guess all this is easier said than done, but for a game whose production cost is the highest in history thus far, it really should have been done.

On an unrelated note, have any of you ever gone to sleep in your safehouse in Bohan, only to be aroused from your slumber by two knife wielding-intruders in jerseys saying, “This place is mine now, Homes.”? It kinda freaked me out. Of course, I made sure that their bodies crumpled to the floor in a matter of seconds. But still, it’s interesting that Rockstar would add something so minor and unnecessary like that in the game. It just goes to show again how much detail they put into making the city come alive, and contrasts rather well with how sluggish the controls are.

I was super excited about this game, but after playing through about 25% of it at a friend’s house, I lost my motivation to continue. I’d still like to beat it, but I’m not driven to get a copy and play it through anymore. Its got some really good stuff but its missing some stuff too. The map is way smaller than San Andreas, there’s no leveling in skills for motorcycles or cars, no body modification (gain weight or get ripped), there’s no bicycles, no additional fighting abilities, no planes that I could tell, while it is more detailed, I found it much less immersive and engaging. I do like riding the motorcycles drunk, though.

Great article. It is such a strange thing that it got 10/10s across the board. I personally think many reviewers were just bought out, but that is my opinion. Anyway, the game is definitely not as polished as it should be and I did expect a little more. Sure there is A LOT of detail, but there just doesn’t seem to be that much to do and marginally less things to do than San Andreas. I just don’t understand why they would take out bikes, and jetpacks, katanas, gore, planes, a bigger area with more variety, and other things. My sibling beat the game and I got about 75% through the story and just stopped playing. The campaign is very interesting and well written but the missions seem to be recycled. After deciding to stop with campaign I wanted to try out multiplayer. Every match I have ever joined had been riddled with ridiculous lag and glitches ( like you said). I even tried just roaming around the city with my friends, but that failed to be any different from roaming around the city by myself. I’ve tried to find fun things to do in Liberty City and the only thing that really holds my interest is playing with the terrible physics ( get on motorcycle and then hit a wall and do a thousand cart wheels in the air).

After playing the game for about 30 hours I decided that GTA 4 wasn’t a game, it was a test. Rockstar was just testing out the new engine that they’re going to use for the next GTAs. They were also seeing if the new styles of gameplay would work and testing out the physics and controls of cars and numerous other things. But the number one thing they were testing was if people would buy and play a game that was smaller and less interactive than its predecessors. I don’t know if I worded it right so I’m sorry if my claims appear to be wrong.

Sorry guys I have to disagree. While I found the multiplayer to be a waste, I was so relieved that I didn’t have to worry about glitches screwing up my missions unlike the previous games. I never felt ripped off. I love the cover system. It’s sweet, and I can go where I want, and if I get stuck on something, it happens rarely and it’s not going to cost me the mission. I wish there were more bikes and and I get pissed when there is suddenly no traffic around but I had a blast with the single player. I don’t think it’s a ten, but it’s a 9.5. Hopefully they tighten up multiplayer and tweak a couple things, but GTA IV is a damn fine game. Sure it gets repetitive when you have to drive to the same places over and over, but they put it a replay function and you can grab a cab if you want.

Do you really think that some other company is going to make a better GTA if given the map? No way.

“I personally think many reviewers were just bought out, but that is my opinion.”

You’re not alone. There are way too many paid shills on the internet. The web has become a marketing tool and little else.

GTA IV not only suffered from being soulless and repetitive, but it was also plain stupid. Every mission felt so ham-handed and insipid. There was no sense of tact or restraint, just pure, brunt force for everything and I mean everything. It got real old, real quick, so that I didn’t care anymore. I stopped caring about character dynamics, stopped caring about how scripted all the events were, stopped caring about how an open world sandbox was hamstrung by linear missions. There were no two ways to complete most missions. I sighed at every cutscene where Niko would conspicuously approach a target, scream out, “I’m gonna kill you now,” and spark an annoying chase against a vehicle that defied the game’s own laws of physics. I groaned when, after being shot at by mobs of enemies, the cops didn’t arrive until I discharged a single round. And I threw up my hands when enemies would literally spawn right before my eyes. They did a lot of things right, but the gameplay — the one aspect I paid for — was shit. Last time I buy into idiot hype.

GTA4 is a amazing game, yes, it is missing a few things that san-andreas had, but it was also a huge step forward from san-andreas.

I think the planned expansions will make up for some of the minor things missing from this very solid game.

Things like the combat system are tricky to get the hang of 100%, but by the end of the game I was a killing machine. There are lots of subtle tricks like getting used to manual aiming, zooming, auto-aim, fine tuning, changing targets, etc. It probably took me about 50% of the game to really learn the combat system which I found very good 90% of the time.

That said, I did see a few glitches throughout the experience, in one mission the bad-guys car didn’t load and it was 2 guys driving an invisible car, I think that has to do with read-errors on my 360. That’s the only memorable bug I found.

Great article, you’re spot-on with just about all of your criticisms I’m afraid, been waiting for these kind of articles to start popping up…

It’s funny, we were just having this conversation on the weekend; once all the gushing 10/10 reviewers actually played through it a bit, how long before they realized all the things you’ve mentioned above and change their scores? it is truly beautiful and immersive, but the game play is the same old same old.

And I went out and bought a console just so i could play it! oh well, at least i now have the world’s most expensive blue-ray player…

After growing up with games from the late 70s early 80s I feel that it don’t matter how great a game is there will always be some whining brat that will always miss the point of the game and want more.
I remember a game called Lotus Esprit Turbo (mid 80s game) where you would drive around a 3D city making drug drops or something like that, I thought at the time and wouldn’t it be great if someone could create a game like this where you had the freedom to drive around a city and get out of your car to do missions. At the time a unrealistic dream of a young gamer but I still thought Lotus Esprit Turbo was a great game.
Then many years later we had the first GTA with its top down view, everyone loved it because of what the game let you do. Then it went 3D, go forward a few years and we are now at GTA IV,
What we have now is some Motherfucker who think that as his player can’t do something like walk of a curb, he is an authority to give a opinion , GTA IV is no different to the others GTAIV is still the same as the very first outing into GTA. its not about how Mr Bellec can or cant walk up a curb, its not about how Mr Bellec may go and find cover behind a fire hydrant, and its not about how Mr Bellec gets brushed by a car.
GTA is about giving the player a level of Freedom to do pretty much what he likes. GTA is about being able to steal a car, run a cop over, have fun with a prostitute, and take a walk along the beach. Personally I think you totally missed the point of what GTA is all about. I dare you to go and find another game that offers as much diversity or even scale found in GTA . I say go and play games like Horace goes skiing, chequered Flag. Pong, Galaxy invader 1000, Jet set willy, Astro Wars, Mario Cement Factory, Juggler,
then come back and have a fucking moan about how bad GTA is. You havnt a fucking idea what a bad or good game is.

It realy gets my goat up when people slag off games without knowing about the history of games to begin with.

You forgot to tell everyone to get off your lawn. Plus, you’re too crotchety and pissy to have an opinion of your own. Somewhere there are aged, pot-belly men playing Galaga… join them! Nobody cares about your condescending history lessons, ya geezer!

what a moaner!
one moment he likes the game, next he dont like it.
personally i think its one of the best sandbox games available.
I mean GTA 3, they moaned about the fact that you couldnt climb swim or even fly.
GTA VC they moaned that it didnt have multiplayer
GTA SA they added everything people wanted but still they moaned that it didnt have multiplayer
GTA 4 lets allow them to do everything from previous GTA games and lets add multiplayer.
They still moan.
im not saying GTA is perfect but compaired to any other game out there its the best of the lot.

So, it looks like the 30-40 year old Eastern Europeans with questionable English skills demographic severely disagrees with me…on the basis that GTA IV is better than pong. Excellent. Your point is taken gentlemen.

And to Siobahn:

You’re so right! One minute I like something about the game, the next there is something that is not so liked! What a country!

I know there’s much more of a learning curve, and I’ve gotten past it. That’s why it took so long for me to reasonably respond to the game, I just kept giving it time for me to learn the system. Now that I know the system, I think the mechanics themselves are pretty flawed, not just difficult or different. And maybe it’s just my terrible luck, but I literally encounter serious glitches or game-ending instances of failed controls every time I sit down to play it for more than a half-hour or so. That being said, I’m glad there are still people in this world capable of disagreeing with you without throwing tantrums, so thanks for the amazingly reasonable response.

Rockstar excels at game environments and little else. There’s always been some failed controls or glitchy gameplay in the GTA series, it just seems particularly noticeable in this one. The more immersive and real the environment, the more it stands out when a jump or a cover glitch ends the game. It’s pretty jarring and really takes me out of it. So yes, I do think a company can take the environment and engine of GTA and create some workable controls.

That actually brings up an interesting point about difficulty and game controls. Nico isn’t really supposed to be a ninja, he’s just a guy. He’s a decent fighter and all, but he’s not supposed be an invincible killing machine. That could actually make the best argument for the awkward controls yet – it’s the only way they really have to simulate the relative fighting skills of Nico. I still think that’s bullshit, but it’s pretty good bullshit. I would maybe buy that if that were the official statement from Rockstar, just because I’m looking for any excuse to justify the shoddy aspects of a game I sincerely love.

I actually don’t mind most of the stuff you guys are talking about missing. I didn’t like San Andreas, the last one I liked was Vice City. I thought San Andreas was too cluttered and scattershot; they put so much random stuff in there they ended up watering down the game in my opinion. I wanted better from GTA IV, and in that respect they delivered, but they didn’t fix any of their age-old gameplay issues, if anything they added more.

Hell I haven’t even made it through all of the story and I’m bored, but maybe that’s just the type of fantasy basement nerd I am. Sure I love grit and drama but I love that over the top grit and drama like Sin City. I got about half way through GTA4 and just… stopped… I can’t place why I stopped… I mean I was so excited to bust it out and play it that I disturbed the raging battle between Iron Man and Hulk that is taped onto the top of my 360. Then I just started playing Team Fortress 2 for a long while… Then Ninja Gaiden 2… Maybe I just cant stand the same thing repeating. At least Team Fortress 2 is multiplayer and Ninja Gaiden 2 is short enough and has a multitude of weapons so that the repitition isn’t slammed down your throat as much.

Oh and to Liam? The history of games may be important but we’re talking about what we have now. In the generation of games we are in, and the technology at our disposal we should be EXPECTING a certain level of proffesional quality from the games we play. That’s like saying “Well the windows don’t roll down on this car” with a reply in a crotchety old voice that wheezes between every few words “Back in my day we were lucky if our cars even had windows!”

Maybe I’m just pissed that nothing has since beaten the fear and joy that Bioshock beat into my skull like my wrench on so many… many…. many splicers.

I agree with a lot of what you said, with one small caveat. This is the first game under the GTA IV engine. GTA III wasn’t exactly the ball of fun the later games built on the engine were, either. I fully expect that any flaws in the engine will be fixed with subsequent releases. As well, the storyline will be more involved with the later iterations of GTA IV. People need to stop comparing IV to San Andreas. San Andreas wasn’t written in-house; the GTA III engine was. Relating it to III, IV is a pretty damn good iteration of the game. IV: San Andreas (or whatever) will, I expect, be spectacular.

I completely agree. I felt like people were so impressed with what GTA IV did achieve, that they were glossing over everywhere it failed so badly. They’re all completely, easily fixable issues that are marring an otherwise amazing game. I can’t wait for the Vice City, or even San Andreas equivalents that are going to come. But to fix these things, you have to talk about them. The customers and reviewers have to at least acknowledge them rather than just rabidly fan-boy foam at the mouth.

I do not disagree with you in any way. I was trying to put things into a little bit of perspective, one which you bring up in your own comment. I’m glad we agree, and I’m glad that this blog has been posted. It does a good job of outlining the main points.

I think you had a good perspective: Think of this one as a test. That’s how GTA 3 worked, that’s how this one will work if we’re all honest about it. If we just give it 10s across the board and start tossing around ‘fags’ like a British smoker everytime somebody criticizes it, they won’t feel they have to change anything. What they’ve done was amazing, it was also bullshit. Next time? Keep the amazing, please fix your bullshit.

My roommate and I both share a lot of Robert’s complaints about GTA4, and tis article has cost us about 3 hours discussing the relative merits of a system of licenced environments as proposed.

Our conclusion: imagine if someone could just use Liberty City and make a zombie survival game, where you could go into a lot more buildings and build up the defences and hunker on top of buildings and snipe the undead. Instead of a wanted meter, you have a “hunger” meter, and the zombies mass up during the night.

Or what about a storyline like Rainbow 6: Vegas, where you are constantly moving about the city to hotspots, but in a free-form world like Liberty, where there might be multiple hotspots at once, and you can’t possibly deal with them all, and police units are patrolling around the streets and engaging in firefights with enemy forces, based on the AI’s behaviour, rather than on scripted events. It would be amazing.

Well…then why did you come here, much less take all the time to comment?

See, I’ve deleted a good deal of these kinds of comments. Whether they’re “get a life,” or “gay,” or “meh;” they’re all entirely irrelevant. You go through all the trouble of reading the site, the comments, and filling out the comment form just to bash out a monosyllabic statement that says nothing and serves no purpose but to show your disapproval. Disapproval is fine; explain it. Am I a fag? That’s great, tell me why. Perhaps you should suggest how I suck cocks, where I suck cocks, why I suck cocks, and how I could further advance my cock-sucking agenda. This would be showing initiative on your part, and though obviously detrimental to me, I would leave it to stand on this site for all to see…because you put effort into it. You used your big boy words. Good job for you.

But stuff like this – this uncreative, unjustified statement that you put so much effort into posting – well, it just makes you look bad. So I delete it. Except for this time. This time, I will actively address it and explain myself and my own comment policies for your benefit and the benefit of others.

In other words: You just had the poor luck to be an example.

There’s a pop-psychology theory about homophobia, to wit: The more outspoken and belligerent a person becomes while protesting a behavior that:

A.) Does not personally affect them,

AND

B.) Must be actively sought out by the protester (i.e. it does not occur naturally in the protester’s daily life, but must be sought after and found in order to object to it,) the more likely said protester secretly engages in, wishes to engage in, or is struggling against the urge to engage in the supposedly protested behavior.

This is most often exemplified by rural or fundamentally religious populations while gay-bashing or race-bashing. In most cases, both homosexual and minority populations are entirely absent from the lives of these people that presume to hate them, and so they must be actively sought out to persecute. These people have to get up, prepare, leave their homes and towns, travel to a gay bar, a parade, or an ethnically diverse population, and then and only then can they actually protest. This is most likely a form of compensation.

To put it layman’s terms, these protesters will say “I hate queers,” because they realize they are surrounded by people that hate queers. If they were to admit they have queer thoughts, they would become victims of persecution themselves, and so they protest the most loudly and most belligerently against queers so as to bely suspicion. The guy with the I Hate Fags shirt is pretending to hate fags more than you, so that you don’t suspect he might be one himself.

I think this might hold true for you. You’ve actively sought out and read one of the “geeky” articles I’ve written (supposing that geeky, in this case, relates to in-depth opinions about games, gaming, science, or otherwise socially stigmatic subjects.) You then filled out all of the proper information and went through all of the steps involved in commenting, just for the sake of suggesting that other people – who have undergone these exact same steps that you have just taken – are “geeks” for taking these steps. I think this theory would strongly suggest that you too are a “geek,” or a “dork;” you’re just not very comfortable with it.

Either that, or you’re gay. And a racist.

Way to be a big fat gay racist dork, guy-with-dick-right-in-his-user-name.

I got to the third island in IV before I sold it. They never finished making the game. First island you’ve got one clothes shop, second island two different ones, one has a duplicate location. Third island: nothing. No new vehicles based on location. The storyline never goes anywhere and the whole “I’m looking for someone” bit never advances. The third island is all but entirely identical to the first two. They ran out of time and money with all the little fiddly details that they didn’t have enough man-hours in the budget to actually finish it.
The really annoying thing is how badly it shows when you get there. The whole thing just drops off, a few missions on the third island to justify it’s pitiful existence, but it’s still the same thing as all the other missions, just more cops with increasing degrees of telepathy and teleportation to know exactly where you are going to go and get in your way.
I don’t compare GTAIV to GTAIII or other gaming history, I compare it to the same company, the same franchise. GTA:SA was amazing, GTAIV is disappointing.
They had the goodwill of the gamer community, they could have delayed for a few years and people would still be waiting for the latest GTA to come out. They -could have- published a completely finished and totally amazing game. They didn’t.
My own $0.02

The game is the most frustrating release I can think of, precisely because the seamless game world is so great. It makes you torture yourself with the pathetically sloppy design.

Transitioning between walking and car-driving, and back again, is the crux of the game. And it’s always a matter of life and death. Yet it takes about 4 seconds to get into or out of a vehicle after pressing the button. If Shigeru Miyamoto was a consultant for the game, Niko would immediately jerk the door open and DIVE IN as it’s riddled with bullet holes. Niko is a trained soldier and criminal! Come on! Your accomplices in Cops N Crooks should be able to dive into open windows. Hell, you should be able to dive straight OUT of the car when it’s about to explode. As it is, you have to give yourself an extra 5 seconds to let your gimpy avatar open the door and gingerly get out of his seat. Rockstar devs don’t know how to actually make you feel like a professional criminal in their crime game. But they do know how to have a cop spit out his coffee when you almost run him over.

How about the fact that the game has NO MENU? You can’t turn on the console and play online without waiting through the load-time of the single player game. When you’re disconnected from a multiplayer game, you’re forced to wait for the single player world to load. Only to exit back to multiplayer when it loads, and wait again for the multiplayer world to load. Because of that, and the obviously broken match-making, the game has the worst and most excessive down-time of any multiplayer game on the market. (COD4 uses a strict TIMER. You have a set number of seconds to choose your equipment and get ready. You don’t have to wait for 5 minutes for a reluctant host or gang of screaming racist players.)

I noticed that all controller input– within the options interface– relies on the RELEASE of the controller button (at least on xbox 360), rather than the PRESS of the controller button. So, when you cycle between “Map” “Brief” “Video” “Sound” “Game”, the focussed word only changes, and gets entered, when you LET GO of the button.

In the multiplayer interface, you can’t simultaneously view a player’s name and his selected vehicle. It’s a textbook example of horrible (print) design lay-out. After readying up, you can’t gaze at the map of the selected region for the session, because it gets replaced by a redundant explanation of how to play the chosen game mode. Shouldn’t the instructions be displayed BEFORE readying up? Why does the interface waste time after EVERY MATCH for a re-confirmation that yes, indeed, you wish to continue playing Cops N Crooks, not Free Mode.

The game is put together sloppily. In fact I’d say it’s one of the most sloppiest games I’ve ever played. Even though the game world is incredible. I especially like the fact that cross walk signals are actually functional.

The lighting engine is wonky. Walk into the Turismo super car shop near the Manhattan safehouse. The lights are off, and won’t go on. Most other indoor interiors have broken lighting too, but that’s the worst one by far.

It’s like they have no quality control whatsoever, or no play-testers who have a clue. It’s like the players are so paralyzed by “Yay we are another step closer to photorealistic gamez!!!11” that they don’t notice how sluggish the control scheme is. Which is like a Lamborghini with a broken steering wheel that nobody notices. And you get cursed out when you comment on it. “Nitpicker!!!”

“2) The load times between respawns are frustrating. While the actual loading itself may not be any longer than a respawn in Halo 3, you’re left looking at a black screen with the word “Loading” in the corner – making it feel much longer.”

Amen to that writer too. The black screen while you’re waiting to respawn is like something out of a bad dream. How stupid can the designers be? Even just continuing to view the world from the immoveable perspective of your dead body would be a million times less boring. It’s possible the design is because the game really has to load your new location, just because of the way gameworld engine works. But it’s awful to endure. Combined with the terrible multiplayer interface, which I can honestly say is the worst I have ever seen, since the dawn of multiplayer gaming, it makes online games seem incredibly, incredibly slow and monotonous.

And like somebody else has pointed out, let’s face it. If you boot up GTAIV after playing pretty much ANY GAME for a while, your eyes will be hurt (or at least a little stunned) by the choppy frame-rate and muddy/blurry style of the GTAIV engine. And the opposite is true too. It’s refreshing to view any other game after playing GTAIV for a while. Yet all the shiny rich deep media for the game– all the official screen shots– use some kind of deceptive workstation rendering or pre-rendering. They look nothing like the way the game actually looks in action, in animation.

I’m glad we can have this mutually understanding community right here, so that we don’t have to smash our heads through our TV screens.

you got the nail on the head. driving around at night or being near water near sunset in nothing short of incredible but it’s only just enough to stop you getting bored from ‘kill this guy, kill that guy, drive here, drive there’. brave thing you did writing this article, though the reception seems counter to what I’d expected. thing is, after all the criticism we give it… it’s STILL probably the best game on the 360.

You haven’t a fucking clue. Its the best game ever made. Gameplay graphics etc. What the fuck are you expecting dickhead. What fucking game would you give 10/10, probably some shite nobody but you wants to play. Go back to wanking because your fucking shit at writing reviews. Maybe the next GTA you may be able to fucking go into every building in the city with a proper family in each one. Then you could go shopping for anything you wanted then go on holiday to anywhere in the world and pay half board. Then when you get back from your hold you could even have a crap and even see the shite on the toilet paper when you have wiped your arse. Even then it wouldn’t be good enough. Now fuck off and stop writing reviews loser.

I’m sorry, I really tried to take you guys seriously and be offended, but all those extra E’s and R’s and the cutesy, obscure slang just make me smile. I guess I’m physically incapable of fearing the English (or Australian, whatever.) You’re just too fuckin’ cute. Also, the close proximity of time between the comments and the clear fact that you’re both from the same anglo country/area can only mean two things:

First – and far more likely of the two scenarios – you’re the same guy who writes anonymous comments and then returns to agree with them half an hour later. That’s just sad, and makes me wish only comfort for you. I hope your grandma comes to town soon and knits you a shawl, buddy.

Or – and this is the one I’m going to go with because it just makes me happy – you’re two irrevocably bonded internet pals with comic strip names and gruff demeanors that hang out on my blog. Which is awesome. You should have a show, or at least a comic strip.

Hey, everybody! It’s Blockhead and Watty – two retarded English soccer hooligans who – through a science experiment gone wrong – have found themselves trapped in the past…in the internet!

Watch as they arrive to websites months late! Thrill as they get boilin’ mad over trifling differences of opinion! Laugh as they scream incoherently and inappropriately mention their own shit!

Blockhead and Watty on: Social Networking

Watty: Wot’s all this then, Blockhead? It says it’s a Friendster, it does!

Blockhead: Sounds like some kind of queer auto to me, Watty. I bet it runs on SHITE!

Watty: SHIIIIIITE ARSE!

Blockhead and Watty on: Rickrolling

Blockhead: Oi, Watty! I keep clickin’ this here link wot says it’s for Hot Shit and Titties, but all’s I get is some ponce in a raincoat singin’ about “not givin’ me up.”

Watty: That’s PIG SHIT.

Blockhead: APE SHIIIIIT!!!

Blockhead and Watty on: Memes

Watty: OI BLOCKHEAD! ‘ELP ME!

Blockhead: Wot’s all this SHITE, Watty?

Watty: SOME BLOKE IS TRYING TO STEAL ME BASE, HE IS!

Blockhead: WHY THAT’S RUBBISH!

Watty: …Rubbish?

Blockhead: Wot? A bloke can’t try somethin’ new?

Watty: …

Blockhead: ARSE HOLE SHITE BOMBERS!

Watty: MUUUULE SHITE CAT SHITE DOG SHITE THREE-TOED SLOTH SHITE!

Man, I really hope these guys come back. I wonder where they came from? Do you think if I wrote a scathing review of Halo 2 I might get their attention again?

i agree that the city is worthy a great game. but you need to make other things than buildings (mountains, beaches, woods and forest) so you can keep seeing new things. that’s what made san andreas amazing – all the different environments.

Yah Gta4 is a letdown…I miss shooting all of the tyres of a pedestrian car and jumping on top of the car and then wait for the driver to drive the loose car until it explode while you get wanted levels…the driver will panic and drive crazilly while you shoot at incoming police cars,bikes and choppers…the car explode & you do it over & over again, wouldn’t that be great online. Now if you jump on a car and it moves you will fall because of the supposed physics.

There also took out the area 51 parody, the desert,the mountain with forest, flamethrower, jetpack, jets, jets with autolock rockets, sky diving(with parachutes), parachuting, the ability to swim underwater, and massive amount of cheats that enhance the game when you close to finishing the game, nothing is funnier than using the cheat to get 6 wanted levels and use the cheat that make your vehicle explode anything it touches, then drive a bicycle into a tank and watch the thank explodes, and yeah i love flying cars, the cheat that let you recruit anyone(police, swat, etc)and running screaming up and away while inserting the jetpack cheat.

I’ll also miss flying into a high place and jump into the sea and because of the high impact you will be pushed down under water….and the sense of progression after a long journey to a new place the game opened up to you..you literally forget about your hood for a while and after becoming powerful enough the game brought you back to the old place and you felt home .

Self created mini game opportunies are also much less now…

I guess Rockstar sacrified all that for better visual and realism…it become a game that’s fun to watch but boring to play. The game cost 230 bucks in my country after you accounted taxes and the retailers profits and you just honestly felt that the reviewers was bought. I wasn’t expecting anything perfect just give me san andreas with better graphics and multiplayer, and I shall be satisfied…

When I first played Super Mario I didn’t want to save the princess! I wanted to fuck the princess! At least GTA gives gamers the payoffs. I’m sure it can be a lot better however it is still the game with the most freedom available and I bet it will only continue to improve.
Loved the article. Great points of view.

I do have to admit that glitches can sometimes add humor and fun to a game. I mean “two guys driving around in an invisible car.” that had to have been hillarious!! I wish that would happen when I play!

But that’s kind of what I’m saying – the freedom and the gameplay are of drastically differing quality. The city, the openness, the environmental interaction are all beyond reproach, but the gameplay is pretty atrocious. I really hope it’s something they can fix and improve on, and I’ll certainly be buying the next one.

It seems if they could take the pros from all the different versions of the game and eliminate the cons it would be perfect! They add something new that’s in demand but then they have to remove something to fit it in! Excellent game but still not perfect. You are right cause after things start to get repetitive I tend to run amuck and leave the goals of the game behind.

It seems if they could take the pros from all the different versions of the game and eliminate the cons it would be perfect! They add something new that’s in demand but then they have to remove something to fit it in! Excellent game but still not perfect. You are right cause after things start to get repetitive I tend to run amuck and leave the goals of the gameplay behind.

I played thru GTA4 twice when it first came out and I’m playing through it again right now — single player mode only.

The only thing I agree with is the futility of having to start a failed mission over from the long, boring start each time.

The final mission illustrates this perfectly: a long chase/follow event, followed by a difficult battle, followed by a motorcycle chase with hidden dangers which likely will cause a couple of replays, followed by a motorcycle jump whose success seems to depend mainly on luck, and if you lose that coin toss — back to the long, boring chase. If GTA4 had Bioshock’s save/regeneration system, it would be perfect. (OTOH, Bioshock is too easy, and that may be why.)

However, in my 2.5 plays, I’ve never lost a mission because of a glitch. I’ve had no problem with the jump/climb button, no problem with the cover mode, nor any of the other complaints above.

The complaint about lack of variety is just crazy talk: “it’s always drive from point A to point B, kill or drop off something, escape cops”. Are we playing the same game?

Take “The Snow Job” mission. You can choose a frontal assault on the Old Hospital and wipe out all of the thugs, or you can sneak in the back and leave the thugs to fight the cops.

Or “Hostile Negotiation” where you must battle through three floors of thugs to rescue Roman. I’ve never seen a walkthough that tells you the easier way is to go around back, climb the stairs, and snipe the thugs through the windows on each level.

Note that in neither of these missions (nor most of the others) are you “delivering” anything.

Maybe the problem is not the variety in the game, but the lack of imagination from some players. As for the ratings, I like Amazon.com’s system: one rating for the game overall (design, etc.), and a different rating for “Fun”.

I agree that the gameplay is shitty as hell but, after a while you get used to it which is a very sad thing.

On the other hand the targeting system is perfect, sure it does take away the effort of actually working for a headshot, but for casual players like me, that’s just fine.

Another very annoying thing is that whenever you get involved in “chase that motherfucker” missions, your target has the best car ever, takes corners flawlessly while going at top speeds, never hitting an obstacle. Meanwhile your car is still bound to the “realistic physics” of the game.

It’s not the worst game ever, but it’s definitely miles away from being one of the best.

Like mostly everyone else, I completely concur. One of the things that got me through the single player campaign was the humorous one-liners they shove in various places, although even that sort of gets old after a while. A few radio stations play bangin’ tunes…I still wish the option of uploading your own playlists onto a customizable station could be a possibility.

Message:This is rediculous. I’ve beaten the game 4 times and im still enjoying it. You guys just haven’t done enough. If you beat the game atleast 2 times it gets easier and you love it more. I have discovered every street and can name them all.You are just abunch of nobodies that suck at this game. And the bad thing is, is that I’m 13 years old and rock at this game. If you have any questions to proof i’ve beaten the game and rock at it, feel free to do so.

Message: Dude, you missed a few other reasons this game sucked balls. The thing, the worst thing, the most retarded and fucking stupid game “feature” ever, the friendship simulator. Having your tit-head of a cousin phone you up to ask you to go bowling or whatever, it was just so annoying. Games should be fun, not mindless and tedious chores.

The whole plot sucked as well. Nico agonizing and talking about going straight with Kate in one scene, and then blowing a warehouse full of gangsters to fishfood in the next.

I can see where your opinion comes from, but one of the reasons I think it deserves all the high ratings it got is because of its replayability and entertainment value. I have never spent so much time passing the controller back and forth between friends as with GTA IV. We have spent hours seeing who can have the craziest police chase or hit the most pedestrians.

To me, it is one of the most fun games to pick up and screw around in with no real goal, something that just isn’t allowed in a lot of games.

Message:as a game artist myself, I can say with some expertise that rockstar is one of the best companies out there for environment detail and pure awesomeness in graphics. And really I find the physics quite good.

But that said, I always thought their characters were unlikable. I cant play gta for long simply because Im not interested in the people. Could be solved with more character creation elements. ie : male/female, appearance options, and hey, maybey a real protagonistic background

Nice to see that I’m not alone in my frustration with modern computer games (as an ex-developer myself). I think there’s a bigger issue here in that Rockstar started out as a small software outfit with a high proportion of creative thinkers and as its grown, the proportion has dwindled along with their voices. So many companies have done this. The result is a boring, repetitive and (criminally for Rockstar) way too serious game that has totally lost the original plot.

I disagree with you only about 99%. For one, the cable car is in the single player campaign, and for two, I think most of those glitches might have been caused by whatever system you were using. I’ve only seen two glitches, and they’re both good ones. I’m talking about the blue hell glitch, and the swing that can send your car flying (even though there’s a chance Niko will fly through the windshield and die). Anyway if you play it on PC, then try a system like the Xbox 360 or PS3 (which I use the 360). Anyway I hope you take what I typed into consideration and at least try it on a different system and see how things work out. Even though they could let you go into any building and make it to where you can set C4 all over the place and blow it up (don’t ask why I included that).

Message:LoL Robert I agree with you about the game but that thing that you wrote a whole essay just for a kid that told you to get a life…was so dorky and funny…seriously…go find a girlfriend…or a job at Rockstar Games and ur life may get a meaning 🙂

Dear Brock-Way.
as one heterosexual sexual, overly sexy man to another, who probably may or may not have several golden don’t awards, you may have heard of the trailer for the new GTA game. Its GTA V.
Now, I can already see you’re yelling at your keyboard to work faster in order to buy a copy. Slow down my overly sexy, heterosexuals man… Is it worth buying a game with the MOST EXPANSIVE MAP FOR GTA GAME YET? Is it worth it to spend close to $50 for a videogame that has THE BEST VISUALS IVE EVER SEEN?! Are you sure you want to control a player that may CAUSE REALTIC AS SHIT FLUSHING DOWN A BOWL MOVEMENTS? if so, sure go ahead…